THE VOICE WITHIN
953 Words
Days at Lunar Academy slipped by like cold mist. Jared moved through them quietly—always watching, never quite belonging. The others trained, shifted, laughed under the full moon’s pull. He stayed on the edges, half-shadow, half-secret.
No one said his name unless it was a whisper or a taunt. The wolfless boy. Kael’s project.
He’d stopped trying to argue.
Classes filled his days—combat drills, wolf etiquette, bloodline history. The last one held him captive. There, in the dust of forgotten legends, he kept hearing echoes of something older. Before alphas, before packs, before the S-tier were even crowned as gods among wolves. There had been another lineage. One erased.
He found the hint scrawled on the edge of an ancient scroll: “The silver ones, born beneath a moon that bled light…” Then it stopped, the rest torn away.
That night, he dreamt of moonlight that hummed.
Kael hadn’t visited since the day she dropped him off. But sometimes, he felt her presence. The air would shift—sharp, heavy—and he’d swear he caught her scent.
Once, during combat drills, he’d looked toward the observation balcony and seen her silhouette against the moon. Golden hair, sharp shoulders, still as a blade. Watching. Always watching.
If she thought he didn’t notice, she was wrong.
She hadn’t brought him here to learn. She’d brought him to awaken.
The seventh night came quiet and silver.
Jared sat alone at the far end of the training field, where the grass shimmered faintly under the moonlight. He closed his eyes and breathed, steady, slow. He wasn’t sure what he was doing anymore—searching for control, for proof, or maybe for the voice that had whispered through his last vision.
The night was still.
Then, the air trembled.
The hum began low, deep in his chest, like something ancient stirring beneath his ribs. The moonlight thickened, bending toward him in a soft spiral of light. His breath hitched.
“Again…” he whispered to himself. “Show me again.”
The world blinked.
And then it wasn’t the training field anymore.
He stood in a vast expanse of silver fog. The ground beneath him glowed faintly, not with warmth, but with memory. The air shimmered with dust that looked like broken starlight.
Then they appeared.
Wolves—dozens of them—emerging from the mist in complete silence. Not gold, not bronze, not the colors of fire and rank. They were radiant, luminous beings. Their fur shimmered like diamond dust, scattering moonlight with every movement. Their eyes were pools of molten silver, calm and knowing.
The Children of the Moon.
He didn’t know how he knew the name—only that it was right.
They surrounded him, silent, powerful. And yet, he felt no fear. Their presence wasn’t a threat; it was a pull. As if he was being drawn home.
One of them stepped forward.
Its fur gleamed brighter than the rest—white-silver, its edges glinting with faint traces of crystal light. When it spoke, its mouth didn’t move. The voice vibrated through his chest, deep and resonant, ancient as wind.
“You are not lost, Jared. You were hidden.”
He stumbled back, the ground soft beneath his feet. “Hidden? What—what are you?”
“What you were meant to become. What they tried to erase.”
The wolf’s eyes flickered, showing flashes inside its pupils—fire, battle, chaos. Wolves of gold and light clashing with wolves of moon and frost. Kael’s face appeared among them—fierce, desperate, standing beneath a bleeding sky.
“They feared the balance,” the voice continued. “They called it heresy. So they hunted us, and took our light for themselves.”
The silver-diamond wolves raised their heads. The sound they made wasn’t a howl—it was harmony, haunting and soft, like the echo of an old prayer.
Jared’s heart pounded. The vision was too sharp, too real.
“What does this have to do with me?” he demanded. “Why are you showing me this?”
The lead wolf leaned closer, its eyes locking onto his.
“Because you carry what remains of us. And they will come for you when they know.”
The world cracked. Light shattered.
Jared gasped awake, lying flat on the grass of the training field. The night was still again—but not empty.
The ground beneath him glowed faintly silver, as if the moon itself had marked it. His hands trembled, and for a moment, he swore he saw a shimmer of the same light beneath his skin—veins glowing with faint silver-blue before dimming again.
He pressed a shaking hand to his chest. His heartbeat echoed differently now—deeper, louder, not alone.
A sound snapped behind him.
He froze.
Someone was there.
A figure stepped out from between the pines—tall, steady, eyes catching the moonlight like polished amber. Kael.
She looked at him for a long time before speaking. “You saw them, didn’t you?”
Jared didn’t answer. The look in her eyes wasn’t surprise—it was dread.
Kael’s gaze flicked to the glowing patch of grass beneath him, then back to his trembling hands. “Then it’s already begun.”
“What has?” Jared’s voice broke the stillness, rough and unsteady.
Kael didn’t answer. She just turned her face to the moon—her gold eyes reflecting its silver light—and said quietly, almost to herself:
“The moon remembers its children.”
And then, without another word, she walked back into the
forest, leaving Jared under the trembling light, unsure whether he’d just been blessed… or cursed.
- Writer
